Life With Boys

The mySci project actually started before 2018.

On December 18, 2017, Kimber Mallett from Washington University’s Institute for School Partnership emailed with a freelance opportunity: help redesign “a whole lot of science curriculum documents.” She warned that it was not exciting and would be repetitive, but it was good work for good people, could be done at home, and paid relatively well.

My response the next morning was simple: “I’d love to talk more.”

We met at the mySci Resource Center on December 20. By December 29 Kimber was sharing practice Google Docs and told me, “You are the key person.” A second designer would supplement the work, and the three of us planned to meet in early January to sort out workflow, Google Docs design, shared drives and files.

At the start of 2018 the project became a real design-support workflow moving the mySci K–5 curriculum into Google Docs.

Kimber shared the project overview on January 2. My response the next day was pretty much how these projects always start:

“So far so good. As we start plugging along we will identify additional information I am sure! What do you want us to start on when?”

By the end of the month I had been working through units, curriculum standards, images, file conversions and the inevitable permissions issues. The time log shows the work beginning January 9 and continuing through the month.

March 23 update: The mySci work expanded. Kimber invited me into a new shared folder titled “MySci 6-8 2.0,” extending the curriculum-design work beyond the original K–5 project.